Valentine Mailbox Tutorial

In today’s sponsored post brought to you by Plaid and Blueprint Social, we’re going to make a super cute Valentine Mailbox with Apple Barrel Craft Paint!

Since the good people at Plaid sent me some Apple Barrel Craft Paint it seemed a good time to do some Valentine’s Day crafting! One of my favorite things about Valentine’s as a kid was making my card box to receive all of my special goodies from my classmates. We got to make them at home and then bring them back and my house was practically a craft store. My Momma has always been crafty and very encouraging of me in my crafty endeavors.

I’d bring glittered, faux flowered, painted, pinata-esque card boxes and proudly place it with the rest. I don’t know how it is nowadays but all of my teachers made everybody give a card to everybody else. There was no excluding somebody and I just loved going through them all from my 20+ fellow students.

MY LATEST VIDEOS

MY LATEST VIDEOS

So I thought, why not make a mailbox shaped card box? Perhaps this is a bit over the top for a kid’s school assignment, unless they’d like to have their very own mailbox in their room. I think this would be super great for a teacher’s desk, though!

I picked up a paper mache mailbox from Hobby Lobby for about $3 after using a 40% off coupon. There were two sizes and this is the larger.

Oh, and I can’t forget that they sent me a package of stencils, too! These came in quite handy when tackling the very popular geometric look!

First I applied a base coat of Cameo Pink to the middle portion of the mailbox. When painting paper mache you need to make sure paint doesn’t puddle on the surface. In those areas your paper mache will bubble giving you an imperfect surface. Sometimes it is horribly obvious and sometimes it isn’t. It’s kind of the luck of the draw so I suggest taking your time.

Next I painted the “door” sections on the front and the back aquamarine. Aaand I got a bunch on the pink. BUT Apple Barrel paints go on smooth and thick so it only took two touch-ups to get it back in tip top shape!

Now every mailbox I’ve ever seen has a knob or a handle and my Valentine mailbox is no different! I used a little candle cup and a wood circle to create mine. You can also use a cabinet knob or an empty thread spool… be creative!

After allowing your paint to dry for a few hours, paint some accents onto the main portion of the mailbox. Initially I was going to go hearts but I thought, though this is a Valentine box, that I’d go trendy geometric so that it could stay out all year if wanted!

You can work pretty quickly because Apple Barrel paints dry super fast! I do all the upside down ones and then flip and do the right side up ones and they were plenty dry!

Continue your pattern throughout and plan on using a small brush and your pink paint to touch up any weird shapes. After about halfway my stencil became wet and didn’t do as good of a job. I of course didn’t pick up on that until I was finished but in the end it turned out okay!

Paint your flag, your brad to hold the flag on and any decorative things you want on the front. Perhaps “Mrs. C” or “teacher”?

I just stenciled an A. Because that’s me. I’m A!

Reattach your flag, hot glue on your handle and, if needed, be prepared to hot glue your flag into place. I couldn’t get mine to do anything but rest on the ground!

Because the knob makes the door want to stay down, apply a thick clump of hot glue inside of the door at the top. Allow to fully cool/dry. This will be all you need to keep the door up as it should be!

This guy is really lightweight and not water safe so don’t plan on putting it outside (the paper mache won’t last in the elements) BUT I am SERIOUSLY considering painting up my actual mailbox out by the street. I just know that the neighbors will love it! :)

There she is, all ready to start accepting sweet Valentines! If you make your own Valentine mailbox, I’d love to see it!

Last but not least, check out the other lovey dovey projects from this campaign:

This is a sponsored post brought to you by Plaid and Blueprint Social and I was compensated for my time as well as given materials to facilitate my post. All opinions, you best believe, are 100% my own.

Hi, I'm Allison!

I'm a crafty cat lady with big dreams and an inability to sit still. I make it, I live it, I love it. Here at Dream a Little Bigger you'll find lots of inspiration for crafts, crochet, DIY, food, pet life and all things rainbow. Lots and lots of rainbows.